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idle0095

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 3, 2008
50
0
I have a new 250G Hard Drive I want to install in my MBP. I want to Mirror the 120 I have in there now. I want all the same data as well as the parition. I have XP on a parition. Is there free software out there that will do this or will Mac Os X do it? I can connect the 250G to a USB encloser and connect it to the MBP. Any help would be help.

Thanks
 
SuperDuper! is what I used.

http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html

I do want to get this right: You want to straight-up copy everything on your 120GB hard disk to the new 250 and install it. If so, that's not mirroring. Mirroring is some RAID thing you do in disk utility. I mention this just so nobody else is thrown for a loop.

OK, here's what I did. First, buy a $15 external enclosure for laptop drives. Set that up. Plug that new HD into a USB port. Run SuperDuper! and do whatever it tells you. There are either instructions on that Web site or someone else will probably post them in here. You want to basically clone everything on the first disk. When that's all done, find some instructions on how to install a new HDD in a MacBook Pro. It takes a lot of patience and a special screwdriver (Torx 6 I believe). One you put the new one in and close everything up, you should just boot the computer and it should work.

Use the external enclosure on your old drive so you have a "free" 120GB external drive. That should be all. I did this with a 320GB new HDD a few months ago and no problems with it at all.
 
ya i ment clone drive not mirror. i have a usb encloser already and the 250 hd. so im downloading the SuperDuper v2.5 now. ill try and find instructions on how to do this. thanks for the help. keep it coming
 
ya i ment clone drive not mirror. i have a usb encloser already and the 250 hd. so im downloading the SuperDuper v2.5 now. ill try and find instructions on how to do this. thanks for the help. keep it coming


I don't think superduper will see or copy the bootcamp partition.
 
okay got super duper for free v2.5. now im sure its easy to do this and clone the main drive to the usb drive but is there instructions on how to do this?
 
When I used to clone my Windows Thinkpad HD, I used a utility (DOS only) which "mirrored" my original drive by copying/mapping exactly, sector by sector, so the cloned drive was for all intents and purposes, exactly the same to my laptop, other than the extra space. At least that's what I think of when I hear the term "mirroring a HD." Copying installed applications and the OS itself just don't work in the ugly world of Windows.

Which brings me to a question about cloning the MacOS... I used to just copy the system files, and any application folders in the good old days of OS 8 and earlier, and they worked, even on a different Mac... can the HD from a current Mac just be copied to an external drive, and all the applications still work, and the computer boot from the copied system? Or does it have to be "cloned" like Windows?
 
ya i think your correct because when i use superduper it only lets me pick the macintosh HD and then lets me pic the XP DRIVE. so i dont think i can clone both onto one drive. so what are my options here?
 
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